


Caged

by lonerofthepack



Series: Whumptober 2020 [3]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Buried Alive, Day 4, Freezing, Gen, Whumptober 2020, caged, collapsed building, kidnapped Original Percival Graves, tw: suicidal ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:35:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26795959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonerofthepack/pseuds/lonerofthepack
Summary: He doesn't know why the building has come down, collapsed on his head. Could be an attack. Could be poor foundations or the shifting of the mountain.He does know that he is unlikely to be found.Part of the Taken 'verse, exploring the age-old trope: what about Nurmengard?
Relationships: implied Original Percival Graves/Gellert Grindelwald (non-con)
Series: Whumptober 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1948168
Kudos: 14
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Caged

**Author's Note:**

> Welp, we're ahead a day, and are likely to stay that way until life settles down and I can take a look at one of the substitution prompts. But until then, please enjoy fatalistic Percival.

He is lucky, for a given value of it— when the tower came down, the wards that caged him had held the stone together well enough that it kept him alive, only crumbling apart as the magic of the place failed more entirely.

He can hear...the mirage of shouts, he thinks. The howl of the wind as it flirts with the cracks at an eerie almost-human pitch.

He is lucky — he is trapped, but he isn't pinned, can wiggle carefully around the stones and rumble. A lattice of thick wooden beams and the remains of the vaulted ceiling hold open a space. Three strides long, two wide, and nearly four of him tall to get to the window that taunts him from the base of the vaulting. He takes his measurements, and lays down on the softest looking pile of gravel he can manage, exhausted.

He doesn't know why the building has come down, collapsed on his head. Could be an attack. Could be poor foundations or the shifting of the mountain.

He does know that he is unlikely to be found.

With a wand and some persistence, he'd be free in...perhaps an hour, depending on the wand, and depending on what sort of warding he’d have to work up to keep everything steady enough. Free to freeze to death, perhaps, so high in the mountains, but free.

But he hasn't got a wand and he has got both a collar that will enforce that he stay in his cell until Grindelwald has forgiven him, with really unpleasant bolts of pain and weakness, and a magical bind that saps him to woozy-weak, too limp and exhaustion-drunk to resist anything at all. Especially as the castle’s wards are failing and trying to tug back together, and using what’s left of him to do it.

He loses what must be a full day to that alone, and wakes to a deeper dark than he’d passed out in — nighttime, then. 

It is impossibly cold, buried alive in a niche of stone much too large for his body alone to warm it.

The wards have failed; he can’t feel them buzzing subtonally in the back of his head. He’s lucky — they haven’t killed him outright.

It’s too dark to pace away any of the emotions bubbling in his chest and belly, and he’s achingly tired. Feels bled dry, and frozen.

Wonders if he should try and resist sleep, if it will kill him, the cold, the exhaustion, the— all of it.

Almost smiles to feel sleep tug on him, and follows willingly.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! As always, comments, kudos, and signs of your appreciation are the life-blood of any creative endeavors, and greatly enjoyed and appreciated.


End file.
